The Supermum project

Led by Siobhan Kiely

The Supermum project roadshow - A local event for mums to meet others and where local family friendly businesses can all come and show what they can offer to these mums! it's a fun day out and lots of important advice and info there such as home safety.

Founders
Siobhan Kiely
Members

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Project updates

Level 2 complete

Project is complete

Posted by: Think Big, Wed, May 29, 2013

Level 1 complete

£300 project complete

Posted by: Think Big, Fri, Mar 1, 2013

And toy of the event award goes to...

Superman ... for being so blimmin super!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Mon, Jul 9, 2012

We heart the mosses centre

There’s loads to do in there for the kids like painting, drawing, reading, loads of toys, and a fab outside area that was very busy today!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Mon, Jul 9, 2012

The future of this group

The stay and play session at mosses centre bury is held every Monday 12:30- 2:30 even out of term time. For the future there will also be group meeting for the Supermum Project!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Mon, Jul 9, 2012

Safe environment for babies too

There are also loads of baby spaces for the babies to play without risk of harm. Theres a huge mixture of tys for all ages and zack loved it here!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Mon, Jul 9, 2012

Plenty of free activities for the kids!

Abigail loved painting and cutting paper with the different scissors that made wavy lines.

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Mon, Jul 9, 2012

the boards getting interest!

This fab lady was able to translate some things for us and recommended to other ladies to come inside!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Mon, Jul 9, 2012

The playroom is RIGHT next door

The free playroom next door

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Mon, Jul 9, 2012

Bingo!

The added bonus of our room is that the playroom is next door so mums can bring their children along to our group sessions! Mine had a ball!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Mon, Jul 9, 2012

What was in them?

We were kindly given leaflets and samples from some businesses and these were handed out for free:

• info from the gas safety register with free pens and magnets

• first aid guides from St John’s ambulance

• cosmetic bags from maybelline

• body shop make up samples

• lilets tampon/panty liner samples

• vosene anti headlice children’s shampoo

• netmums leaflets

• other various leaflets

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Mon, Jul 9, 2012

Like wildfire...

We handed out over 30 of these but still have about 70 left!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Mon, Jul 9, 2012

It ain’t an event without goodies!

We had some fantastic feedback from the mums in the centre and many were very pleased with their free info gift bags too!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Mon, Jul 9, 2012

Twelve days of ... motherhood

We currently have a total of 12 boards for our main display and these are:

1. The culture shock of motherhood

2. PND

3. Crazy little thing called TIME

4. Routines

5.Out & About

6. Mum's money

7. Home warm and safe

8. Home safety checks

9. Cleaning and home tasks

10. Bury mums map

11. Welcome to Bury

12. Get Active locally

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Mon, Jul 9, 2012

Our general focus areas

1. CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED… TIME

Just for mum/me-time, time is precious so use it well and save as much as possible. New routines and tips to save time and convenience.

2. MUM THE PARTY PLANNER

All of the different occasions that we have to organise. Halloween, Birthdays, Christmas, Baby Showers. Etc. All of the posts relating to occasions and parties with tips and advice.

3. MUM’S HOUSE

Being in charge of your own home. All the important info you will need to know. Being prepared for all situations at home. Cleaning tips and great buys for the home.

4. MUM’S MONEY

All about managing the money. Ideas that don’t break the bank. Cheap stuff to do. Money saving tips

5. PND

the psychological illness and how to deal with it.

6. SO NOW YOU’RE A MUM…

Single life vs New Mum Duties. Discover the changes involved, new duties and responsibilities, adapting and the culture shock of motherhood, new decisions to make.

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Mon, Jul 9, 2012

event day part 5

The displays were all very well received and we were asked for some booklets with photos of the boards so they could take the information home but unfortunately we don’t have anything like that and had just to point them to the web page.

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Mon, Jul 9, 2012

event day part 4

The mums here were really impressed overall and our main comments were that we should travel to other centres as they think others would also benefit from the information!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Mon, Jul 9, 2012

event day part 3

We set up the displays around the room and with some great interaction with visitors we found that ladies actually shuffled the boards around into a better order! Wow!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Mon, Jul 9, 2012

event day part 2

We used the local community centre which we have been granted for the foreseeable every week. It is a nice little centre with a very mixed ethnic attendance (many of the ladies here were unable to speak English and a lovely lady was able to translate to some of her aunties for us!)

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Mon, Jul 9, 2012

event day part 1

Many mums were outside in the playground with their children and called in to see the displays when they got a chance!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Mon, Jul 9, 2012

Its event day!!!!

Today was our first ever event day! Things went great and due to the weather being amicable there was quite a turnout at the centre!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Mon, Jul 9, 2012

Keep on keeping on!

Doing what I possibly can to spread the word about the group and hopefully we can get the project recognised better locally... even on the virtual notice boards!! As I type at 10:30pm there were over 100 local mums on the Netmums boards chatting so I added these....

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Fri, Jul 6, 2012

Been a busy day!

The poster is complete and i've printed out loads of them!! LOADS I TELL YOU!! I travelled around today and handed them to as many stores and health centres as possible (hopefully they will actually put them up and not just bin them!) My most exciting one is the Asda store as they have a huge community board and the lady who controls it said yeah sure leave it with me so hopefully she'll put it up before the weekendd for the huge footfall of parents to see as they do their weekend food shop!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Fri, Jul 6, 2012

Got the venue guys great news!

We have secured an initial room for forseeable on every Monday at 12:30 - 2pm at the mosses centre in Bury town centre. The first event will be on Monday the 9th July 2012and we can possibly continue these sessions weekly if the manager is still happy enough with it after our first few uses! Theres a FREE 'stay and play' session in the room next door which means that there will be direct access to mums in the centre!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Wed, Jul 4, 2012

I don't like Mondays- hopefully this one will be different!!!

Recieved a very nice email today that hopefully means we have a chance of securing the best venue in town for what we're trying to do!

I have a meeting at 1pm with the manager so wish me luck!! I'll need a triple dose of luck as its also MOT day booooooo!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Fri, Jun 29, 2012

Ball's in their court

Found the PERFECT venue for our event it really is the best place to run it from its central to town, mum's will already be there and theres already a creche and a huge community focus in this place. I'm in love.

Sent a nice event venue request to see if they like the sound of us and specifically asked if we could please be allowed to have our event there one monday. (They seem to have all day parent focused activities on a Monday!)

Its a matter of watching this space while kinda scouting for a second best place just incase they say no. Fingers crossed :S

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Tue, Jun 26, 2012

Get them loose ends tied up! Setting firm deadlines!

Work has been a little delayed as we had a family holiday, then came the diamond jubilee festivities and I also had a busy few weeks arranging my children’s christening! But now it’s time to tie up the loose ends for the project and get on with the next steps!

A lot of work for the displays has already been done but completion is still just out of reach! The final stretch now has been given a deadline of Thursday 21st June for us to complete the displays fully so that we can get on with the next steps!

Breaking this down we have allocated 1hour per board for full completion which is 12 hours and this has been worked out at 5 boards today, 5 tomorrow and 2 on thursday morning. This is intense but necessary to finally complete the displays and move forward!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Tue, Jun 19, 2012

5 down 6 more to go

We’re now through FIVE of 11 boards and its looking somewhat to being an exhibit.

I’ve decided that venue wise we are definitely best using surestart centres to display the boards (if they’ll allow it) The reason for this being that there will definitely be mums there to benefit from what we do.

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Fri, May 18, 2012

The Nitty Gritty

Just for the benefit of anyone else who decides to do this kind of thing I’m gonna show you how I go about getting our content on to the boards…

It’s a production line kind of procedure that makes the whole thing easier…

• pull out the topic folder that we made earlier.

• pull out a big display board and lie it flat.

• pull out content of topic folder and assess what there is.

• use one of the mini paper boards to sketch the general placing whilst spreading out the resources into a general area on the board (grouping similar topics together)

• once everything looks spread out into a comprehensible format, then print out any necessary headings and text to go on the boards.

• stick everything onto individual bits of coloured backing paper to make a nice uniform border and finally stick everything down into position.

• it is only when all boards have content on that we can the look at adding pretty finishing touches (when we know there’s definitely an empty space.)

• keep following this procedure until all boards are done.

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Sat, May 12, 2012

One down ten to go!

Board one now has content on it and I’ve decided local ads and info can go on table and surrounding posters. There’s still 10 main boards to get info onto and then once they are done I can add pretty design stuff to make them all look fab

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Sat, May 12, 2012

Making boards for ANTS

I know it would confuse Derek Zoolander but I had a brainstorm in the design session and decided to do basic sketches onto mini folded paper boards. Kind of like creating an event for ANTS!!!

Thought it would be best to have a trial run before I get to work on the main elmers boards because I don’t want to ruin any of the main boards (as I waited for them for quite a while from America so they need to go well)

These will actually help at a later stage of the process as they will help me plan the overall layout of the venue too! If I have mini boards to place around I can group similar themed boards and decide which local services may fit their stands around them.

I have just folded a4 sheets to make mini versions of the larger boards!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Tue, May 1, 2012

What is this?!! An event for ANTS??

I have had a brain wave and its a mini scale version of the event boards to help me plan their design!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Tue, May 1, 2012

Design days (I don’t like mondays)

Just so you know I am NOT slacking or anything I just hit a boring stage of the process that I have been avoiding… so after a food shop and trip to docs with Zack, some laundry, a bit of tidying and about six coffees I could avoid this bit no longer…. its design day *shudders*

There’s a lot that I want to be doing today instead (such as watching my old friend Zara’s new Vlog that I’m totally addicted to

But it’s time to face the music and get back to work. The reason I don’t like this bit is because… it’s hard. I’m just rubbish with design ideas so I’ve taken to the old fashioned pencil and paper for idea scribbles to start me off.

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Tue, May 1, 2012

Going Local

The Supermum Project is the more nationwide aspect of the group but for the Bury mums event I've branched out a little and gone local. woop woop. We now have a completely separate Bury Supermums website with it's own unique mix of current Supermum Project and new Bury Supermums Branding. Check it out at www.BurySupermums.co.uk

We also have a new @burysupermums twitter feed and some fab event posters (which despite lacking an actual event date and venue are looking pretty fine if I do say so myself.)

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Sun, Apr 29, 2012

Parrallel Universe!! (The USA- of course!!)

Research has led me to a whole new parallel universe and it’s called a community fair!

There’s a group in USA called Teenlife who really caught my eye as they have just had a ‘community services fair’ and it looked really cool (and very similiar to what I had in my head!) You can check it out on their website. Fairs such as this aim to sign people up to become a volunteer with over 50 non-profit organisations attending. This fair in particular was in a local shopping mall and I imagine this was clever for the purpose as it got a good footfall. I don’t necessarily think this is what we need as we are targeting mums so don’t want all kinds of people coming just to take the freebies.

The section on Teenlife’s website entitled ‘What Did Visitors Do at the Fair?’ gives me a view of what other fairs offer and we can then aim to be at least on a par with theirs….

■Visitors met with 50 Non-Profit Exhibitors to gather info and and sign up to volunteer

■Received valuable information from our Sponsors and Supporting Exhibitors

■Donated old bikes through Roll It Forward

■Voted for their favorite High School A Cappella group in our TEENLIFE SING OFF hosted by Bristol Voice & Recording Studios

■Were entertained by Pitch Slapped from Berklee College

■Took a break from the activity with HINT Water

■The first 500 attendees received a “pin bag” from Johnny Cupcakes

I then found another website containing tips from a US teacher who runs the annual community service events at a college and the main points I gathered from his post were these:

■Arrange for the fair to take place in a high traffic area. Set up tables for presenters to showcase information or displays.

■Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday are best logistical days (Monday spurs forgetfulness and may be busy for community agencies, and people tend to be weekend-focused on Fridays).Keep track of communication with faculty, staff, students, and community representatives regarding the fair. With numerous phone calls and e-mails, there is always the potential to forget small, but important, details.

■Create a list of community agencies and student groups that may potentially participate in the fair. Figure out which organizations are particularly crucial; this is especially important in smaller towns.

■Most community agencies will be glad to participate, provided they have enough notice of the event. Contact nonprofit agencies 6-8 weeks prior to the fair.

■Obtain an e-mail or postal address for all representatives of student groups and community agencies who will be presenting at the fair. Use this to confirm logistical details and provide directions to the fair. Send a follow up e-mail or letter thanking them for their participation.

■Also remember to send thank you notes to anyone who helped with the fair.

Bringing visitors in

■Promote the fair with posters, flyers, and other media. Find catchy ways to grab attention.

■Send an e-mail about the fair to all relevant people

■use blogs or other social media to create “buzz” about the fair.

■Create a list of significant invitees. These might include faculty who teach courses with a service-learning component, or staff with jobs related to community service. Send them a letter about the fair (e.g. its purpose, time, and location), at least a month before the fair. Follow up with a phone call or visit to their offices a week or so after sending the letter.

I found some more useful websites from US colleges that also do these fairs including the Brandeis university community fair and also the University of Western Sydney’s community fair.

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Fri, Apr 27, 2012

Mama's pinning like there's no tomorrow

The task is to look online for as many cool display ideas as possible and get some inspiration for our event down on paper so that the vision isn’t just in my head. I’ve done this using an amazing website that I’m sure you all know about called ‘Pinterest’ so googled some search terms such as “science fair displays” “indie craft fairs” “cool displays” etc. Some really cool pics came up and I’ve pinned all the best ones to the virtual pin board created specially for this task. Check it out here:

http://pinterest.com/supermumproject/display-ideas/

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Tue, Apr 24, 2012

I neeeed you baby!

Found what I've been looking for and boy she is perfect dont you agree :) She's my new friend!! - Don't tell anyone but I've named her already so I hope I can get one! She will be a huge effect on the displays in her sexy superwoman outfit.*Wish list pings*

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Sat, Apr 21, 2012

Resource hunt and lots of rain

Today was big resource hunting day. Up and dressed bright and early and we all bundled into the car to go collecting resources that could possibly end up on our displays.

First stop was the leisure centre as we aim to have a section on getting fit to beat depression. This also can now be a part of me-time as I found out the fabulous news that our local Bury leisure centre has a crèche so mums can put the kids in and get on with the activities (for a cost).

After brief visits to the railway office and the library’s information point I collected loads and loads of leaflets and got the kids quickly into the car as it started to pour with rain.

The next task for the project was to sort out all the newly collected resources into the right folders! So I sat down and started on breaking down the (very big) pile of leaflets and posters. Some were actually irrelevant and pointless so they got put in a recycle pile! The project continues…

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Fri, Apr 20, 2012

Alert! New development (and it''s not an easter egg hunt- sorry!)

This has resulted in a new development …. the need for resources and this surely means… going on a RESOURCE HUNT!!! Oh yes it’s not far from easter but this will be completely different from an easter egg hunt!!! Instead of hunting for chocolate eggs we will be going to places such as the town hall and local tourist information centres etc to gather up as much display material as possible (posters/leaflets) – hopefully they wont actually be hidden and I certainly wont be using a fancy basket to collect them in. There may be chocolate however (a girl needs energy for carrying all those heavy resources!! But the chocolate may not be egg-shaped – unless they’ve got old easter eggs going cheap whereas we may then be obliged! (plus egg-shaped chocolate just tastes sooo much better than average ordinary shaped chocolate!)

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Wed, Apr 18, 2012

Kinda like making revision sheets ... but different

Before the actual displays come into play the content still has a long way to go before it is ready to be put onto them. I’ve spent the last few days just breaking down all of our content into more manageable chunks for the displays.

We have 5 main topics and then a hell of a lot of subtopics to cover. I have now managed to divide up the content onto the 24 “sides” we have available for the displays. This compression is reminding me of school days when we had to revise for an exam by compressing HUGE amounts of data down onto one single sheet of a4 when creating revision notes. It’s HARD!

Now we have 24 clear subtopic areas it will be easier to make sure all the displays are covered. Using the sheets as you can see above I’ve scribbled and changed a lot during the process and now have a clear set of 24 sides for the displays. Reading the sides’ mini descriptions on the sheets I can see what kinds of display resources we may want to add to our diplays.

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Wed, Apr 18, 2012

Getting the content ready for the displays Part 2.

Using dividers into these folders to create sub topics and further break it all down into smaller and more manageable chunks

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Thu, Apr 12, 2012

Getting the content ready for the displays Part 1

Starting by dividing up all the content properly into folders so it’s broken down into key areas.

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Thu, Apr 12, 2012

Getting organised Part 2

I’ve got myself a special o2 think big journal to keep me on track and record anything that could later be put on our updates page. Writing things down just always helps!

This has helped to get things clear as to what needs to be done along the way. I can fill it with to do lists and updates so I can tell the rest of the team what’s been done so far and what our next steps are.

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Thu, Apr 12, 2012

Getting organised part 1

I started off by gathering all the content together from the blog and the books. I also got any resources and leaflets together that I already have collected. The task begins…

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Thu, Apr 12, 2012

where's an old mannequin when you need one!

I just know there will be a cupboard somewhere in the back of a shop thats cram-packed with old mannequins that aren't being used! But when you actually need one its pretty hard to find one!

It goes without even explaining that one of our displays HAS to be a supermum project lady like in the logo! I'm thinking old mannequin, supergirl outfit, black wig and a few custom touches made by yours truly. Wow she's gonna be a piece of art aint she!

If only I could find a goddam old mannequin!!!

I've looked on ebay and a new one i.e. fresh out of the factory is way over £100 and this just kills our budget so I need to get hold of an old one somehow. There are loads without heads but these are just scary!

The supergirl outfit however is well and truly ordered and delivered (I just couldn't wait any longer!!)

It's hung up and ready to be worn but the search for an old mannequin continues...

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Wed, Apr 11, 2012

FIRST THINGS FIRST! The goodie bags of course!

Well of course every good event has freebies and as we're trying to educate the masses of their local products and services we thought how better to do this than contact local (and national) businesses to ask for their help!

The leaflets and free samples started rolling in and we've been able to create 100 FABULOUS info and sample packs for our visitors to take home from the event! This will definitely leave a lasting impression wont it!!!

The ball is well and truly rolling, I'm just now focusing on the preparation for the event- mainly the displays first of all and then once we have the displays ready we can get around to actually book our venue for the event! I say the displays need to be done first as there's a few different sized rooms available to us and we dont want to get one too big or too small!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Wed, Apr 11, 2012

Have you ever seen a science fair?

It sounds kinda strange when we put it like this but the event is going to be very similar to an 'American school science fair' But obviously as its us we will be doing it far more awesome-ly and less science-y!

We want displays and exhibits to really catch the attention of our visitors and make the information fun and easy to read. If its boring people just wont remember it will they?

So I got with the whole science fair vibe and ordered some 'elmers display boards' that are well known in the US for being used at science fairs.

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Wed, Apr 11, 2012

Lets get this show on the road people!

So we just got the email saying we would be getting some level one money from o2 Think big to help us to make the roadshow (event) dream a reality!

Here's what we are aiming to create (in case you forgot from earlier):

The Supermum Project Roadshow:

A local event for mums to meet others and where local family friendly businesses can all come and show what they can offer to these mums! Its a fun day out and lots of important advice and info there too such as home safety, budgeting, meal planning, laundry skills.

So now the planning can really begin! If the event is a success then hopefully we can get this to be an official "roadshow" that we can travel around offering to more places.

As usual I am running before I can walk!! The "start small think big" idea from o2 is just spot on for how I keep feeling but I need to remember that first things first and its all about the event (for now anyway... a girl can dream cant she?) God to get on to level two would just be UNBELIEVABLE for our project!

So back to the actual event... Its a local event for local mums to see whats available in their area. I designed a poster 'avatar' showing our supermum lady holding the map of Bury (our town) which I thought was quite cool so I'm putting it up here for all to admire!

The things you can do with a simple 'paint' application!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Wed, Apr 11, 2012

A metaphorical pat on the back (it felt as good as a real one)

We got onto Netmums 'blog of the week' it was an amazing feeling when they emailed to let us know before their post went live!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Blog of the Week: Local Reviews. Join in to win a £50 Amazon

voucher and help local Mums too!

Posted on March 14, 2012 by The Netmums Blog

For this week’s Blog of the Week we’ve chosen Super Mum, The Project. Rather than singling out a particular post that she wrote, what we want to do is introduce the fantastic idea that she has come up with which, in a nutshell, is encouraging others to do reviews of Netmums’ local listings.

Netmums Local Listings are full of great ideas for places to go in your area. If you haven’t visited before they are well worth a look so don’t forget to pop over for a browse of what’s on offer in your neighbourhood.

For March we’re concentrating on Soft Play Centres.

We’ve all been to them and we all know that some are better than others. What we’re hoping to do is be able to tell other local Mums which ones are the very best in their area.

Here’s how it works (for Bloggers):

- Go to your local listing in Netmums

- Choose a Soft Play Centre from the list

- Visit the facility and write up a review of it on your blog. (Don’t forget to tag it ‘Local Review’)

- Then simply add your review to the local listing so that all the other local mums can find it (and your blog!) too.

If you tweet the link of your review to Netmums we’ll retweet to all of our followers.

If you’re not a blogger we would still love to see your review. Simply follow the steps above and then post your review under the ‘review’ section on your Netmums Local Listings.

As an added incentive we will be featuring Soft Play in our April Newsletter AND we also have a £50 Amazon voucher to give away to our top 3 favourite reviews!

We’ll be giving bi-monthly prompts of which facilities we’re focusing on, and we hope that by joining in you can become a Local Review Expert that our members can come to know and trust.

We’ll be leaving a linky open on this post so we encourage you to link up your review (by clicking on the green Mr. Linky button below) so that you can be entered into the competition for the Amazon vouchers.

Netmums, and our members, can’t wait to read them all!

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This was an amazing 'pat on the back' for our work so far and has really motivated us and inspired us to keep pushing for positive change! We will continue to keep raising awareness of what we do!!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Wed, Apr 11, 2012

If you can't beat them...join them! The parent bloggers network by Netmums

It's amazing!!! We have recently been recognised by Netmums i.e. one of the big players in the parenting online industry. They really liked our blogging idea where we visit local places and review them to help other mums see which ones they should go to. They called it- "Local blogging reviews - the concept" and linked back to our site! woop woop!

Here's the link to where we got mentioned on their site (aka to their millions of readers!)

http://www.netmums.com/bloggers/local-reviews

We all

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Wed, Apr 11, 2012

a little bit of research... does you good!

The March SPSP Tour 2012: So we basically thought we need to get out there and experience local business through a mums eyes. We toured all of the local Soft play centres and reviewed them in depth.

This was some good research for us as it opened up our eyes to all of the different requirements that mums have while out and about with children and that some places can be much better than others!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Wed, Apr 11, 2012

Do you 'like' us? ... we're on facebook!

Check us out with our very own facebook page ladies and gentlemen!

http://www.facebook.com/supermumproject

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Wed, Apr 11, 2012

Its freebie time!

We created an ebook that is available for free download. It contains a lot of the blog content so far in a proper order so that mums can learn new things. It is packed with do-it-yourself tasks so that mums can get on with making lots of small changes that together can make massive differences to their lives!

The link is here for anyone to download if they want a copy...

http://studentbumtosupermum.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/free-supermum-mission-book.pdf

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Wed, Apr 11, 2012

Big.. like 'Jack and the beanstalk' giant-sized big

The BIGGER Ideas

(a bit of daydreaming about our future)

We also want to massively raise awareness of the culture shocks of motherhood to help people to make changes to their lives WAY before they have children.

Political topics we will investigate is teaching more practical life skills in school such as running a home and meal planning and budgeting etc. We also want to encourage the use of interactive dolls to teach children how difficult caring for a child actually is. An amazing thing for us would be if we can offer a residential or day course for schools where they come and experience the real world in a house that they have to run and be a parent with all the responsibilities this involves eg meal plans, shopping budgets, safety etc.

Siobhan would personally love to train up a team of advisors for this and do this permanently in a residential setting. Even with a creche for mums and get young mums to take part too if they feel they are struggling. It was suggesting in a group meeting that tv shows like the Jeremy Kyle show would benefit from something like this that they can send struggling young parents to as part of their aftercare programmes.

A huge goal would be to create a kind of a ‘Supermum camp’ if you will with different workshops and classes on offer. We could even get them to budget and go out and buy food and cook it for everyone rather than have a chef in; which would teach life skills and feed people at the same time. The possibilities are endless. A real life ‘university of life’ place that all groups and schools could use as a teaching tool.

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Wed, Apr 11, 2012

Starting Small - Thinking Big!

Since the project is actively growing in the great worldwide 'blogosphere' we decided that it was time to physically take what we do out to the people. A Supermum Project Roadshow! And o2 Think Big have made this possible!

The Supermum Project Roadshow:

A local event for mums to meet others and where local family friendly businesses can all come and show what they can offer to these mums! its a fun day out and lots of important advice and info there too such as home safety, budgeting, meal planning, laundry skills.

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Wed, Apr 11, 2012

"Nice to tweet you" - we're on twitter!

We're officially on twitter and regularly tweeting our followers which is currently around the 900 mark. We would be over the moon if this got higher as we would know we are reaching more people with our useful info!

Come say hi!

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Wed, Apr 11, 2012

We're famous! Well almost!

Love it! Magazine did an in depth article on Siobhan's past. She has always been open about her own personal issues with depression and drug abuse. Although this went at a personal cost to our leader as her private life was made public she was very happy that the Supermum blog got recognition as it means so much to her to help other mums.

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Wed, Apr 11, 2012

The project's rising

So the content ogf the book became the foundation of an ongoing online blog there is always so much information and updates in the world of parenting that it gets updated constantly. Siobhan became known as a 'mummy blogger' in blog circles and our knowledge on parenting continued to grow and grow!

Our web address is:

www.StudentBumtoSupermum.com

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Wed, Apr 11, 2012

Siobhan gets it 'write'

So I wrote a book to start us off with what things I had learned so far from my research into how to be a good mum. I self published it and any funds we raise from sales will go to the project directly. It can be purchased online here: http://www.lulu.com/shop/siobhan-kiely/supermum-by-a-lazy-student-bum/hardcover/product-18673267.html;jsessionid=56E0D171E53E74348747F1ABB690E9BD

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Wed, Apr 11, 2012

Our beginning

Siobhan Kiely LLB is 24 years old and was born in Bury, Greater Manchester.

After gaining a Law degree in 2008, Kiely then went on to become a stay at home mother of two; Abigail and Zack.

Kiely’s personal experience from being a single and care free student-bum to quickly becoming a ‘clueless new mum’ inspired a mammoth task that was to become known as the ‘SUPERMUM mission’.

Our Aim:

‘To create a generation of SUPER-MUMS out of even the most clueless lazy ‘BUMS.’’

If a Lazy Student-Bum like me can do it …then so can YOU

The ‘shock to the system’ of motherhood

"I want to help other mums, like me; who have suffered from the ‘culture shock’ of motherhood, especially those who have post natal depression but also those who just need a positive push in the right direction.”

(Siobhan Kiely, Founder)

Background

Nothing quite prepares you for the days at home with children. Before them you were free and single, without a care in the world and then all of a sudden you have a million responsibilities to deal with.

You automatically think your careers gone, along with that hot body; so is all your free time and not to mention your money.

We want to help others because we know how it feels to be broke and bored watching cbeebies and shaking rattles all day.

We know how it feels to lose who YOU are and feel depressed when such massive change happens. We have been that person who stands looking in the mirror upset because we feel like a ‘fat old frumpy mum.’

We want people to know that it is natural for such enormous changes like those that come along with motherhood to ‘uproot’ people and leave them feeling confused and unfamiliar.

Here’s how Siobhan's story goes…

“before I had kids I was going somewhere. I was at law school doing intense and extremely difficult case analysis. I was alone in silent libraries researching complex issues for hours and hours. In my free time I was getting dressed up and dancing the night away. I picked up friends in my car and went wherever we wanted to… you know… just on a whim…because we could. I was desirable, exciting, and most of all… things were all about ME.”

But then, in the blink of an eye… your time no longer belongs to you… and thats 24-7. From now on there’s no such thing as sleep, or a rest or long relaxing baths or peace and quiet.

Yes you used to think the world revolved around you but all of a sudden you now come last in the ranks and you become a ‘servant girl’ …. feeding everyone, cleaning clothes,doing the dishes, scrubbing bottles, making up feeds, dressing people, tidying up, wiping bums, wiping snotty or dirty faces, tidying up again, reading kids books, changing nappies, fixing toys, sharpening coloured pencils, finding lost dummies, rocking prams, and of course tidying up AGAIN.

It’s a total shock to the system

Early mornings and disturbed nights can really start to get to you. There’s often so much to do all at once that it’s really easy to keep forgetting what you were doing (when you keep getting distracted by the kids and their constant demands!)

There’s shame, embarrassment, a certain ‘weakness’ and social stigma associated to the issue of post natal depression. Nobody wants to admit how they feel because they think it’ll trigger more health visitors coming and we worry about those secret ‘notes’ between professionals that could suggest we’re unfit mums if we admit that things are getting on top of us.

I want to help these people because I’ve been there too and many people could do with some extra help with the adjustment process… the change from single life to parenthood is definitely gradual but there are also some tools available that can help us along the way. The aim is to help people with getting on top of things and not being overwhelmed by it all.

Treating post natal depression

Obviously the chemical imbalance in the brain due to pregnancy hormones can be treated with medication so this is a doctor and patient issue.

With the illness we can only recommend to see your doctor today because medication can change your life and there’s no time like right NOW.

The focus, in the Student bum to Super-mum mission, is on the other things that contribute to the depression, like the overwhelming million and one tasks to do and getting your head around the changes that you’ll need to make to become a ‘mum’.

We want to help show people that things can be broken down into smaller chunks and made more easily digestible than they first appear.

Posted by: Siobhan Kiely, Wed, Apr 11, 2012

Broadcast